Calista Jewelry: A Digital Transformation Journey Full of Emotions

Key Achievements

Calista Jewelry's Challenges

For most business owners, the hardest part of digital transformation isn’t right ERP software selection—it’s managing expectations. Many expect ERP to be a plug-and-play solution that replaces manual effort, automates everything, and delivers instant results.

Calista was no exception. Previous ERP projects had failed, leading to frustration and wasted resources. However, these setbacks gave CEO Truong Thi Hanh a crucial advantage, Ms Hanh affirmed that managing expectations was the biggest challenge of Calista's digital transformation project.

However, this was only one part of the challenge. Beneath it lay a series of specific operational inefficiencies that had long hindered Calista’s growth:

• Overdependence on personnel: Business owners had to rely on sales teams and accountants to generate reports on revenue, receivables, costs, inventory, and payroll. Financial visibility was delayed, leading to slow decision-making.

• Lack of control over cash flow: Without real-time data, the company struggled to track financial health and manage liquidity effectively.
• Fragmented and unstructured data management: Business-critical information was exchanged via informal channels like oral conversations, Zalo, or Excel spreadsheets, making it:
• • Difficult to retrieve historical data
  • Impossible to control document versions
  • Challenging to manage employee handovers, often resulting in missing or lost data when staff resigned
• Inefficiency in wholesale production orders:
• • Quotation processes relied on accountants to calculate costs, leading to slow response times and dependency on finance teams.
  • Lack of visibility into order progress, especially when linked to production schedules.
• Production process lacked transparency:
• • Paper-based workflows made order tracking cumbersome (e.g., purchase orders, production orders, and material lists).
  • Only sales admins had access to order details, limiting operational transparency.
  • Production costs and progress were not monitored in real-time, leading to inefficiencies.

To truly transform its operations, Calista needed more than just a software solution—it needed a structured, realistic approach that addressed both technical and organizational challenges.

Solution for Calista

Calista achieved the success in digital transformation by two key principles that made all the difference:

Managing Expectations – Setting Realistic Goals

Instead of promising an all-in-one magic solution, Viindoo helped Calista clearly define priorities and understand that ERP is a tool, not a replacement for human decision-making, which ensure that:

• The leadership team understood what ERP could and could not do.
• ERP was positioned as a tool to enhance team productivity, not eliminate roles.
• The implementation plan was phased to ensure smooth adoption without overwhelming employees.

Keeping Things Simple – Avoiding Over-Complexity

Many ERP projects fail because businesses try to customize everything, add too many features, or make the system too complicated. Instead, we followed a “keep it simple” approach:

• Standardized best practices instead of unnecessary customizations.
• Focused on critical business needs first, rather than trying to automate everything at once.

• Ensured the system was user-friendly, making it easy for employees to adopt.

Specific Solutions for operational inefficiencies

To overcome these operational inefficiencies, Viindoo selected implemented a structured approach, focusing on real-time data, process standardization, and reducing manual dependencies:

✅ Eliminating Overdependence on Personnel

• Automated financial reporting, giving leadership direct access to real-time revenue, receivables, costs, and inventory data without relying on sales teams or accountants.
• Standardized workflows reduced reliance on key personnel, ensuring operations continued smoothly despite staff changes.

✅ Gaining Full Control Over Cash Flow

• Integrated financial management allowed real-time tracking of cash flow, receivables and payables, improving liquidity management and decision-making.
• Automated invoicing and payment reconciliation streamlined financial operations, reducing errors and delays.

✅ Centralizing and Structuring Data

• Migrated all business-critical data to a single, structured ERP system,  eliminating reliance on Zalo, Excel, and scattered records, improve interdepartmental collaboration process.
• Version-controlled documents ensured data integrity and easy retrieval, reducing risks of mismanagement and loss when employees resigned.

✅ Streamlining Quotation & Order Processing

• Sales teams gained instant access to cost calculations, enabling them to generate accurate quotations without depending on accountants.
• End-to-end visibility into order status improved coordination between sales, production, and delivery teams.

✅ Enhancing Production Transparency

• Digitalized production planning, production process, material requisitions, and inventory tracking eliminating paperwork and reducing errors.
• Provided real-time monitoring of production costs, production progress, and inventory , improving efficiency and resource planning.